FedEx Ends Ground-Delivery Deal with Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-07/fedex-deepens-pullback-from-amazon-as-ground-delivery-deal-ends <comment><USER2> I guess this means more Amazon Logistics deliveries, which is really a shame because that service sucks.

Amazon keeps optimizing for speed but I think for most people they're fast enough already. And optimizing more in this one dimension could actually make the overall experience worse. I'd rather 100% reliable 2 day delivery than 85% reliable 1 day delivery but that's not where the trend is going.

Reminds me of how apple pursued thin devices until they broke a fundamental part of the experience (MacBook keyboard). Sometimes you're done.

<comment><USER3> As a customer I don't like this as I've had these guys leave packages in my driveway in pouring rain when the covered front deck was only 20 feet away. They also frequently deliver my packages to my neighbor's house and speed around like maniacs.

On a societal level it's a shame that jobs that could actually support a person or family are being replaced by hustle economy types. My own parents never went to college and have worked service jobs their whole life, but could still own a house and eat dinner with us every night. They even bought a computer when I was a teenager in the 90s. I think in today's world they'd be driving for Lyft all night and I'd have grown up in a different town with a worse school system.

"Your margin is my opportunity." -Jeff Bezos

<comment><USER4> Amazon put a flag on my old address to not use FedEx fulfillment because they had 100% failure rate. FedEx always managed to drop the package at a different but similar house number than mine (e.g. 698 or 588 instead of 598).

It was a single family home in a neighborhood of ~100 homes on 2 intersecting roads, so not really hard to find.

UPS, USPS, and Amazon had no problems finding my house. Even had a couple freight companies make deliveries on Amazon's behalf without issues.

I use to standby FedEx as my preferred shipper but they've really gone down hill since the early 2000s IMO.

<comment><USER5> > Amazon put a flag on my old address to not use FedEx fulfillment because > they had 100% failure rate.

Amazon will let you do that with every other carrier EXCEPT Amazon Logistics. The only way to get them blocked is prove your home is a prison, military base, or have experiences so horrible they have pity on you.

<comment><USER6> I need to turn my apartment into a prison then.

It's incredible really. The Amazon logistics folks weren't able to accurately put packages into the parcel locker system at my apartment, and would constantly just leave them on the counter in the public area. This happened so much so that my apartment revoked their courier number to use the parcel system. The apartment management's idea: instead have them deliver directly to the door of each resident. As you can imagine, this has tanked successful Amazon deliveries to anyone in my apartment complex. I'm probably sitting at about a 66% success rate for getting my packages delivered AT ALL.

On the bright side, their customer service folks have added tons of $5 and $15 credits to my account because of how absolutely terrible their own courier service is at delivering.

<comment> half-pixel-off For me it's a treasure hunt I never asked for.

\- Was it left at my apartment door?

\- Was it left in the 2nd floor mail room/lobby?

\- Was it left in the 1st floor main entry/lobby?

\- Was it left outside?

\- Was it left in some side door?

\- Was it left halfway between the 2nd and 3rd floor on a random stairway?

\- Was it left in the office?

\- Will I have to wait 3 more days so I can report it lost/stolen and try again?

So fun.

Not to get into the "Prime 1-day", which when I order three 1-day things at the same time means one shows up tomorrow, one the next day, and one the day after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to me that as Amazon and Walmart vertically integrate shipping, FedEx and UPS haven't responded by integrating fulfillment and warehousing.

<comment><USER8> They seem to be dinosaurs. If the UPS website is any indication, they're deeply dysfunctional. Mind you, they're both worlds above USPS.

<comment><USER9> I adore USPS. They are by far the most reliable carrier for last-mile delivery, at least in my city. And they have an added bonus that they can leave smaller packages in my locked mailbox. UPS isn't too bad, to be fair. But FedEx, good riddance. Usually takes two attempts for them to figure out how to get something on my front doorstep.

<comment><USER10> The primary function of USPS, as far as I can tell, is to deliver spam. For the privilege of occasionally getting useful mail or a package, I have to subsidize USPS by maintaining a box in my yard for them to fill with that spam.

<comment><USER11> Fwiw, junk mail isn't taxpayer subsidized, they pay a different rate. It's actually a profit center for USPS.

<comment><USER10> I have to subsidize them by maintaining the box so they can save labor and don't have to walk up to my door to deliver spam.

The spam is a profit center for the USPS, it's what allows them to deliver other mail cheaper than UPS/FedEx.

<comment><USER9> This must vary by location. My box was purchased initially by the neighborhood but is maintained by the USPS. My mom's house gets walk-up service with mail through a slot. Aside from buying stamps or paying to send a package, I have never directly subsidized USPS infrastructure. Excluding the punitive pension requirements Congress uses to make USPS look like a money pit, they'd probably be profitable.

<comment><USER10> In more rural areas there are not neighborhood boxes like that. Each person is responsible for an individual box by the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh I suspect they could just parner with a food delivery service and tap into all those gig economy resources. May even do a uber like service for deliveries, as with the volume Amazon has. They have many options. Certainly the whole gig economy aspect will be one in which ticks many company accounts departments as avoids so many direct employee costs. It's like having a direct employee, but at your beck and call standby without any standby pay and the responsibility you would have with outsourcing. The deniability and responsibility you can avoid as a business over having a full time employee are immense. Which is an issue that is only slowly being addressed. Until then, I'd be supprised if Amazon does not go down this route. Maybe even partner up with Uber or Just Eat. Amazon and Burgers at the same time anybody?

I do hope gig economy workers are given some fair and equal rights sooner, been some improvements in some countries, but its modern slavery of our times in the way so many businesses deploy it.

<comment><USER13> Amazon is already doing this themselves: [https://flex.amazon.com/](https://flex.amazon.com/)

Amazon even used to have a food delivery service that it recently shut down because no one knew it existed ([https://www.amazon.com/restaurants/legacy](https://www.amazon.com/restaurants/legacy)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> On its face, this seems a little like sour grapes from FedEx. "You're going to leave us, so we're going to leave you first." While Amazon is _absolutely_ becoming a last-mile competitor—I see their blue vans all over the place now—they aren't there yet, and still worth 1.3% of 2019 sales now. Why not take the money and extend your runway to "reduce dependence"?

So then to answer my own question, I'd hypothesize that it's a combination of bad-deal economics (e.g., Amazon contract isn't that profitable in aggregate) and strategic focus to spend time and energy on the post-Amazon _future_ rather than the present. Which I get.

<comment><USER15> I'd suspect that as Amazon's volume falls, the discounts and special treatment they've been getting cease to make economic sense.

<comment><USER16> Years ago I worked for one of Amazon's shipping operators, whatever we wanna call them, and the rumor was that Amazon had already squeezed contracts to the point that on their own merit these contracts were not or only barely profitable, depending on the math. It was said to be still interesting to have the contracts, for scale and reputation. But then it may just not be sour grapes for FedEx, but rather that the numbers weren't compelling them to stay in a relationship likely to be dumped from anyway, sooner or later.

<comment><USER17> I bet amazon exploited the weaknesses in the contracts...

Delivery to San Fransisco - amazon delivers. Delivery to an island off Alaska - Fedex has to take it for a flat rate that nowhere near covers costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We still can't see the top of the delivery market. Whether it's packages in boxes, food, or who knows what's next [1]. Both will also embrace autonomous delivery.

[1] I own a lawn mower. I use it once a week for an hour. Talk about a massive amount of under utilized capacity.

<comment><USER19> _Lawns_ are under-utilized capacity. Mostly too small or poorly laid out (like, almost all front lawns, for instance) to be much use. A pain to maintain, and done individually rather than more cheaply and efficiently as a group. Every other house with a playset rather than having lawns half the size and a couple much nicer, maintained parks per block. They're absurd.

<comment><USER20> I understand your premise, but society is litigious for me to be willing to make a public accessible anything on my property. Little johnny falls off the slide or swing, and little johnny's parents sue me (or at least my home owner's insurance policy). I'm not willing to accept that liability.

I'm also not the type to consider lawn work a pain to maintain. Of course, I'm talking an actual yard, not the back 40. In fact, that's my guaranteed weekly bit of escape from tech. Once the yard is being cared for, a simple bit of mowing doesn't take that long. A few times a year, it takes an additional stroll around the yard with some fertilizer.

<comment><USER19> Cities can run parks, I'm not saying open up your lawn to others, our society's too batshit crazy for that. We have some city-run parks, they're just way less common than they could be with somewhat smaller lawns and _part_ of the cost savings from smaller yards going toward park upkeep. Could have a house-lot-sized one every few houses by just squeezing the houses very slightly closer together, and could have _huge_ ones every few houses with significantly smaller lawns. Every single house within a two minute walk of a nice park, maintained at a cost lower than maintaining all that space divided among a bunch of individual families.

Of course cities seem to quickly be abdicating care of common spaces to HOAs anyway, with neighborhoods and common spaces laid out by developers with little or no incentive to fix this problem—another part of the death of the commons and the atomization of civic life and the growth of "eff you, I got mine" generally—so I'm just pulling an Old Man Yells at Cloud here. Though this is _literally_ why we can't have nice things, so it remains frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting that Amazon is below (but presumably close to) 10% of UPS's volume, but only 1.3% of FedEx's volume.

<comment><USER22> UPS is enthusiastic about working with Amazon, but Fedex is not. Simple as that. Fedex is a gap-filling option within Amazon.

<comment><USER23> Why isn't FedEx enthusiastic?

<comment><USER24> Because FedEx knows that Amazon is planning on being a competitor to them.

Amazon Delivery (or some name similar to that) will eventually handle warehousing, fulfillment, transshipment, drop shipping, and last-mile delivery. Delivery is such a large expense to Amazon, it only stands to reason.

UPS presumably believes that they can compete with that. Maybe they can. Or, possibly, they believe that they will be purchased by Amazon in the future.

<comment><USER22> Yes, it is coming (google Ship with Amazon) but UPS will be fine.

In much the same way Amazon has a head start on other e-commerce firms, UPS has on Amazon. They have been customer-obsessed in one of the hardest spaces (Meatspace logistics) for literally 111 years. This kind of thing is extremely difficult to get right, and Amazon has a long, long way to go before they can compete with UPS.

<comment><USER25> Coming? Nearly all packages in my area (Grand Rapids, MI) are now delivered by Amazon.

Which is super annoying for me, I live in an apartment complex, they used to almost exclusively use USPS where I live, and they have a system where they put a key in your mailbox, etc.

Amazon's deliverers are literally random people - after talking to one myself it became apparent that they barely even require much English (I'm only complaining because that makes it harder to communicate - I don't care if they speak english or not but if it's impeding their one job - delivering a package, then I'm kinda erked)

Since it's never the same person, the standards are wild. Sometimes the package is left in my garage, sometimes by the front apartment door (you have to be buzzed in)[0], sometimes they're by my specific apartment's door [1]. Other times they take it to the rental office.

Amazon really needs to figure this out, this isn't the only apartment complex in the city.

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/6GcPI7N.png](https://i.imgur.com/6GcPI7N.png) [1] [https://i.imgur.com/9RuceQj.png](https://i.imgur.com/9RuceQj.png)

EDIT: Also sometimes they call when they can't get inside, sometimes they just leave it outside, sometimes they don't call or ring the buzzer and just say "Couldn't deliver". It's wildly inconsistent.

<comment><USER26> I was picking up my mail at my apartment complex when an Amazon delivery dude asked if I would let him in (the apartment requires a key fob to open doors to get access to the building). I told him he can just leave his packages at the leasing office like the other carriers do. He said his instructions say to leave the packages at the apartment door, so I told him maybe the people at the leasing office could help him out.

Back at my apartment, as I'm about to be at my door, I see the guy again, he's hitched a ride up the elevator as someone else let him on, and he's asking me where apartment #### is, I pointed to the sign by the stairwell with a map of the building.

The dude didn't seem very good at his job, and the fact that Amazon is instructing their delivery people to circumvent building security to leave packages at people's door is concerning.

<comment><USER27> > the fact that Amazon is instructing their delivery people to circumvent > building security to leave packages at people's door is concerning.

Oh, I'm sure that Amazon never _instructed_ delivery agents to ignore building security. Instead, I expect they just passively incentivize it.

For example, the delivery agent might have been able to mark the package as undeliverable, but in turn they may have had to pay a penalty if more than a threshold of deliveries could not be completed as directed. It's not an instruction to trespass to deliver, just ignorance of what it takes.

In a functional delivery system, there'd be a way for knowledge like this to percolate back up -- the delivery agent would mark the package as undeliverable, and then the courier company would investigate the situation and ultimately refuse to accept deliveries for door-delivery in that building.

However, Amazon's current structure makes this functionally impossible, and a rotating cast of contractors makes even the knowledge-acquisition step impractical.

<comment><USER26> After selling on Amazon for a few years, I can say this sounds exactly like something they're probably doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not sure of this is related but I live in Mexico and I've only had problems when I receive Amazon US orders via Fedex. The last one happened just a few days ago when Fedex tried to charge me the taxes that I had already paid.

<comment><USER29> I live in the USA and I'm not a fan of fedex. The last couple times something was delivered by fedex the guy in the truck had to call me to get directions - and it isn't hard to find my home. And then it is always a guy in a rental moving truck not a fedex truck which seems weird.

<comment><USER30> I wish they'd call for directions. Instead they go to the wrong place, can't find the house, and return back. The next day, they do it again. And again. The managers said they have no control over it. That's not a delivery service. That's just idiots with a truck wasting gas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This has been true for a few weeks in many Amazon regions. Even as a prime customer, my one day shipping options, which were previously handled by FedEx, are completely gone. Best case shipping is now USPS two-day here.

<comment><USER32> I recently lost the one-day Prime shipping option too... seems to have happened sometime around the early June announcement [0] of "expanded" one-day shipping for Prime customers.

[https://blog.aboutamazon.com/amazon-prime/prime-free-one- day](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/amazon-prime/prime-free-one-day)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I used to work for FedEx (ground and smartpost) Corporate. They would take volume just to fill the hubs at little to no profit. I can't imagine that the amazon deal was very lucrative. As a side note I don't think people realize how small FedEx is compared to UPS. UPS is like maybe 4 times the size.

<comment><USER34> Just for reference: -FedEx: 41.208B -UPS: 98.159B

Since they are global companies, maybe UPS is 4x bigger in the US. This is not trying to refute anything.

<comment><USER33> Yeah. that was what I was told by a manager. UPS looks about double the size now: [https://www.diffen.com/difference/FedEx_vs_UPS](https://www.diffen.com/difference/FedEx_vs_UPS)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The only thing worse than Amazon delivery is FedEx. The idiots can't find a road that's almost three years old and constantly attempt to deliver packages to the other side of the city. It has led to numerous problems. Calling doesn't help. The next day, they repeat the same mistake. And the next. And the next until the package is finally sent back. Managers there can't help and they never fix their system. Too bad other retailers think this is still a viable option, a delivery service that can't find an entire street. The pizza delivery guy doesn't have a problem and neither does ups, usps. Amazon's own delivery has similar issues but they seem to have corrected after a few tries although they have other intractable issues.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm kind of amused by this news. Based on my (consumer/addict since 1997) experience, Amazon's logistics is ruthlessly efficient and also easy to troubleshoot when things go south (extremely rarely).

FedEx quality of service has been pretty abysmal over the last 5 or so years. I always get a pang of terror inside me every time I see a notice that an item will be shipped by FedEx. I've had all kinds of nightmare experience with them (refusal to drop package at the entrance of the condo building is the least of the problems). Let's just say, I reached out to their CEO at some point, escalating the issue with a box repeatedly failing to deliver (because they were trying to deliver it anywhere but my place). I have no love for them and I think if/when Amazon decides to commoditize their logistics (just like they commoditized their web services into AWS), they will drive FedEx into the ground.

So yes, IMHO despite the whole "I dumped you first" attitude, this is an evidence of Amazon's strength and Fedex's loss.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't remember the last time FedEx delivered an Amazon package to me (it HAS happened, but been a while). Mind you the last like 15 packages I've gotten (guestimate) were all from Amazon's own delivery service minus one third party seller that went USPS, so this doesn't surprise me. Just wonder how much longer they even use UPS (I think for some non-prime deliveries they'll still use USPS because they're an efficient system for that).

</comment><comment><USER37> I am run a consulting company for Amazon suppliers[0] and honestly "felt" that FEDEX pricing was too good to be true.

Fedex was probably net-negative on the deal.

We often saw examples where multiple pallets worth of inventory was cheaper to ship through fedex ground small-parcel. That doesn't happen with UPS.

[0] [https://www.andersonassociates.net](https://www.andersonassociates.net)

</comment><comment><USER38> Sometimes early is not important but on time so amazon customers' don't have to change their other schedule.

</comment><comment><USER39> How can Fedex breakup? I thought Amazon had upper hand in this.

<comment><USER40> I would be curious if Amazon is using Fedex for its deliveries which are the most expensive to perform (rural area) while delivering all the lowest cost deliveries themselves (urban areas, a few miles from the distribution center). Fedex maybe losing money on every delivery.

<comment><USER41> This is the real reason. It's the same parasitic approach Amazon has to its 3rd party sellers that are basically doing its price discovery and are promptly replaced if some goods sell well by either making a deal with the producer themselves, undercutting them or by making an "almost-clone" and selling it under Amazon Basics or another label they own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> makes sense. Amazon has built out their network pretty well.</comment>


Easy A/B testing at Nextdoor - <AUTHOR> https://engblog.nextdoor.com/2015/07/09/ab-testing//

<comment><USER2> Wow this is like stepping into a time warp for the early days at Thumbtack. Our A/B testing bucketing and methodology was extremely similar to this.

Things we learned:

> Our guiding principle has been ease and accessibility: when testing is > effortless, more people ship more tests, and our product steadily improves

Thumbs up. Whenever we made running tests easier, we'd end up running more tests.

> Ramp the number of exposed subjects up or down

You don't want to do this. If there are time based effects (people behave differently on weekends vs weekdays, daytime vs nighttime, etc), changing the ratio on-the-fly can mess up your data. If you need to roll back an experiment because it is causing a bug or something, roll it back, fix it, then restart it. But don't change the ratios on the fly.

> and whether the differences were statistically significant

It looks like you are starting/ending your tests based on time. This is good, much better than cherry-picking results at arbitrary intervals, but it might be slowing you down. Another method is to define your sample size threshold before your test (using something like Evan Miller's sample size calculator [1]), then when your test hits the threshold you can end it based on that. We discussed and picked a company-wide power and significance level to try to balance moving quickly with acceptable errors from testing.

> P-value of 0.045 in your test sample

I ran your numbers through ABBA [2], the open sourced split test calculator that one of Thumbtack's engineers made, and ABBA puts your P-value a little over 0.08 (Evan Miller's tool [3] agrees with Thumbtack's). Big difference between 0.08 and 0.045. There are different statistical methods you can use to evaluate split tests, but we ended up preferring the one underlying ABBA (which you can read about on the ABBA page).

1: [http://www.evanmiller.org/ab-testing/sample- size.html](http://www.evanmiller.org/ab-testing/sample-size.html)

2: [https://www.thumbtack.com/labs/abba/](https://www.thumbtack.com/labs/abba/)

3: [http://www.evanmiller.org/ab-testing/chi- squared.html](http://www.evanmiller.org/ab-testing/chi-squared.html)</comment>


Sessions asks 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys to resign - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-justice-prosecutors-idUSKBN16H2K8 <comment><USER2> This is nuts. Preet Bharara won convictions against two of the highest ranking state legislators in Albany [1]. He is one of the few people who could scare Governor Cuomo into line [2].

In November, Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump told Preet Bharara that he will stay on under Trump [3]. They lied.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/nyregion/preet-bharara- us...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/nyregion/preet-bharara-us-attorney- sees-lessons-in-albany-corruption-trials.html)

[2] [http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/prosecutor-preet-bharara- disputes...](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/prosecutor-preet-bharara-disputes-gov- cuomo-corruption-claim)

[3] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/nyregion/preet-bharara- sa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/nyregion/preet-bharara-says-he-will- stay-on-as-us-attorney-under-trump.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER3> With as many leaks going on in the govt right now, I expect EVERY political appointee to be let go.

In other words, expect a lot more of this in the coming days.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk says people should get a basic income once robots take their jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/elon-musk-universal-income-robots-ai-tesla-spacex-a7402556.html <comment><USER2> This is scary as fuck when you think about it. Why? Because the idea of a UBI basically pre-supposes some sort of entity that does something like collecting taxes and then taking responsibility for divvying things up to provide the basic income. Call it "government" or what you will. Then look at how corrupt our government is now. Now think about what happens when your very survival depends on that government divvying up the spoils and doing the right thing.

Do the math. Corruption will become far more pronounced than it is now and most of us will be forced to survive on $2 / day, while the elites live larger than ever. You think income inequality is a problem now? It'll only get worse once (and if) technological unemployment puts all (or most) humans out of work.

A world where you can't sustain yourself by creating value through some independent initiative / effort is probably going to be a very ugly world.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a well-known opinion from Mr Musk, and the story has been submitted many times, some with significant discussion. In case you're interested in what HN "thinks" it might be worth reading some of them. Of course, these are quite old now, so if you have anything to add you'll have to do it here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884477) (31 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13150173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13150173) (16 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13139261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13139261) (11 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12890376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12890376) (5 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13674967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13674967) (1 comment)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13644567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13644567) (1 comment)

Other submissions don't have any comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678268)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13677450](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13677450)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637950)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884990)

</comment><comment><USER4> Mick Resnick's "Feelies" is based around future society where this has happened.</comment>


Javascript and semicolon insertion - <AUTHOR> http://inimino.org/~inimino/blog/javascript_semicolons

<comment><USER2> A horrible Javascript misfeature, second only to default global scope. I always use semicolons, but as the article notes even if you do that you still have to be aware of how automatic insertion works.

<comment><USER3> From the article, the only _really_ nasty things are:

      [a].forEach(fn(){})
      [b].forEach(fn(){})
      // Parses as [a][b]

      return
      a+b
      // Parses as return;

You would have to work pretty hard to trigger the rest.

I'm curious about the speed trade offs from removing semicolons. You shrink the source code a little, but does the parser throwing exceptions all the time bump up execution time?

<comment><USER4> A parser would not normally handle this kind of thing with exceptions, and any cost would only be paid once, at parse time when building a syntax tree, not at execution time. Very few languages interpret text directly, rather than interpreting trees, as the trees are far easier to work with, more efficient, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I realize this is not the forum for this, but hopefully it will serve as a warning to others: the linked article does not scroll on the iPhone (horiz or vert orientation).

"Cool" layouts are all fun and games, but usability is king.

<comment><USER6> It does but you have to use two fingers.

<comment><USER7> Yup, I only learned about this feature a few months ago. It also makes other apps like the standard Google Reader usable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Use JSLint: <http://www.jslint.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> Frames? Is it the 90s again?

<comment><USER10> No, there are no frames.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Every since I started using JSMin, I've needed to add semicolons after all my functions, which is something that I can't seem to remember to do as a habit.

</comment><comment><USER12> this issue and the 'var' keyword are two of the reasons I feel Python is mostly a superior language. (Not necessarily completely, just overall.)</comment>


Terraformize – Apply\Destory Terraform Modules via a Simple REST API Endpoint - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/naorlivne/terraformize <comment><USER2> It could be cool to preview the changes before the final apply. Maybe with a GET to show the deltas?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you feel up to open a ticket about it in github I'll gladly consider adding that feature assuming there's a use-case for it.</comment></comment>


The Day We Fight Back: The Video - <AUTHOR> https://thedaywefightback.org/video/

<comment><USER2> Powerful video.</comment>


Baby Galaxies Found Swaddled in Dark Matter Knot - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/massive-baby-galaxies-found-swaddled-in-dark-matter-knot-151204.htm <comment><USER2> Can anyone explain to me _how_ they know there's a dark matter knot there?</comment>


100,000 Stars: Google Chrome experiment to visually explore the Milky Way - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/11/14/100000-stars-googles-latest-chrome-experiment-taps-nasa-to-visually-explore-the-milky-way/

<comment><USER2> This is beautiful. Well done!!!</comment>


Why do people continue to sack ride twitter? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.styleguidance.com/post/311580955/why-do-people-continue-to-sack-ride-twitter <comment><USER2> This was a rather refreshing and realistic look at some of the many problems with Twitter.</comment>


Cost of the Uniloc Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/cost/ <comment><USER2> The most embarrassing part of this story is that Ric Richardson, the Australian founder of Uniloc, is portrayed in the media in Australia as an entrepreneurial hero.

He had his own 'Australian Story' feature:

[http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/thebigdeal/default.ht...](http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/thebigdeal/default.htm)

And has been profiled numerous times as brilliant genius entrepreneur in the newspapers:

[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the- beautif...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-beautiful- mind-of-the-aussie-who-beat-microsoft-20110810-1ilm6.html)

<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/04/19/1240079538770.html>

As far as I am concerned this type of coverage is a complete embarrassment for the Australian tech scene and honest entrepreneurs from this country. Not once in any of this coverage of Uniloc is the issue raised of small companies being sued and threatened.

If you follow me on Twitter you would have seen that I have been tracking his media coverage for years now and getting in touch with journalists in order to get the other side of this patent trolling out and known to the public. It was all to no effect.

This guy didn't invent anything, he is simply taking advantage of an antiquated patent system to profit from the work of others. It is funny how in none of these stories is it mentioned that what he does only works in the USA.

If you are from Australia help us out the next time you see a story or feature on Ric and paste in a comment about how he is helping destroy small software startups.

<comment><USER3> He presented at the recent SydStart event/convention here in Sydney. The crowd was largely skeptical of him and his patents, and he had to cajole the audience into agreeing with him that one of his "inventions" was actually patentable.

I find it sad that a man like this is invented to speak to 900 entrepreneurs and actually given some credence. He seems like a smart guy, but patents aren't a friend of the startup community.

If you want to contact @pc0 who organised the latest SydStart event and register your displeasure at Ric being one of the main speakers at this largely awesome event that might be interesting.

<comment><USER2> I had somebody email me about the same event, I am definitely going to follow up on it - thanks for the info.

I am also going to write a post about it this weekend and forward it to the journalists who have covered Uniloc in the Australian media, to try and get the other side of the story out.

<comment><USER4> Nik, Im sure if you actually talked to me you'd find that Im just a normal bloke who likes inventing things that hopefully someone will use. Ive sold a few inventions over the years and its great to make a living at what I love doing...Id ask you as one fellow technologist to another to not make it personal. Please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If Uniloc wins this lawsuit they will have a precedent with which to sue every app developer on the Android Marketplace who uses the Android License Verification Library. Given how this can be a crippling blow to the Android Marketplace, I'm interested to see what Google's reaction will be to this lawsuit.

<comment><USER6> MS fought for 8 years and then settled.

([http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft- settles-f...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft-settles- fight-over-uniloc-anti-piracy-patent-1-.html))

<comment><USER4> Yes but not this patent. They will have to fight for a precedent like everyone else in the US legal system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm involved in a similar legal 'dispute' and was quoted very similar numbers by several large firms. I was eventually able to find representation that is substantially more economical and that is likely of higher quality. Feel free to contact me directly if interested (same or similar jurisdiction even!)... Email is in profile.

<comment><USER8> It is highly possible the Laminar Research people didn't post this or don't read HN. If you have good advice to give them, you should probably contact them directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was surprised to see that this lawsuit seems to be about copy protection, specifically Android app signing, not anything specific to flight simulators.

The specifics of the suit were two clicks away from the linked page: <http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/details/>

This seems strange; does android app signing even use "communication with a server to perform a license check"? That sounds more like serial/license number verification.

<comment><USER10> Yes, it took a while to find. This is one example where changing the headline on HN to match the headline of the blog, where it expects to sit inside a lot more context, is just confusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems to me that it would be very much in Google's best interest dig some change out from under their sofa cushions and provide legal support for these developers. There should be no question that the patent will be knocked down, but knocking it down will take money, and it would behoove Google to let their developers know that when the patent trolls come a-knockin', they won't be left on their own to defend their use of basic API calls.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is unacceptable. I found it unacceptable last time that Uniloc sued mojang for minecraft. And I find it more unacceptable now that they're pounding on a guy who's not got the deep pockets that Notch has.

This is unacceptable. Entirely unacceptable.

Tomorrow it could be me, or it could be you. This has to stop, like right fracking now. Take Uniloc down. Take all patent trolls down. Stop this patent law bullshit. Right now!

<comment><USER13> How? I would love to do it!

<comment><USER14> Do you remember how anti-abortion activists would put up a website listing the names and home addresses of abortion doctors? And every time one of them got shot, the activists would gleefully strike through the name of the doctor on that site?

Put up another such site, starting with these guys: <http://www.uniloc.com/index.php/company/>

<comment><USER15> Are you advocating incitement to murder as a solution to a legal issue?

<comment><USER16> It does happen. It happens to divorce lawyers too. If you choose a profession where you put people in the most stressful position of their lives and then abuse the system to unfairly take everything they have, a small minority of them try to kill you. It's not right, but it is true.

[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20A13F7395A1...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20A13F7395A137B93C6AB178FD85F4D8784F9)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The general background, necessary reading for basically all of us:

<http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/>

Specific lawsuit details:

<http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/details/>

Hilarious, it's a patent troll called Uniloc suing a guy for implementing a license-check-with-a-server in his Android app - apparently the one provided by Google for use in Android apps.

LANGUAGE OF THE DISPUTE: _Paragraph 12 of the lawsuit states: "Laminar Research is directly infringing one or more claims of the '067 patent in this judicial district and elsewhere in Texas, including at least claim 107, without the consent or authorization of Uniloc, by or through making, using, offering for sale, selling and/or importing Android based applications for use on cellular phones and/or tablet devices that require communication with a server to perform a license check to prevent the unauthorized use of said application, including, but not limited to, X-Plane."

Section 107 of the patent, which they claim I violated, contains: "107. …code for verifying the license data stored on the licensing medium by communicating with a registration authority having verification data…."_

These guys seriously need to be beaten down. Their website says:

 _"In the device recognition space, for example, we believe that we have uncovered a billion dollar market … And it fits our straightforward development model. Look at many ideas. Pick an outstanding one. Patent it. Commercialize it. Reap the rewards."_

Either they were really careful with the patent application phrasing, or the PTO flubbed this one.

THE PATENT IN QUESTION: I'm reading the actual patent and seeing that it's about a license system which is in 3 parts: device, "portable license medium", and registration authority (presumably a remote server).

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,857,067.PN.&OS=PN/6,857,067&RS=PN/6,857,067)

MAIN IDEA: The primary claim is that the device checks the data on/from the license medium and compares it with verification data from the registration authority. The data may be a hash of the license data; it may be encrypted by a private-public key system; it may contain hardware identifiers so that the authority can check if the hardware is on an authorized list; it may be updated with new data from the authority; it may be limited by an expiry date; so on and so forth.

It goes on to talk about securing the licensing medium and data by means of a double verification process (through a "license manager").

LICENSING MEDIUM: The definition of the licensing medium:

 _The licensing medium 120 is a portable component that contains information concerning the software or other licensed electronic data that the user is authorized to access. When a user seeks to access a vended piece of electronic data, the client program communicates with the licensing medium 120 to verify that the user is authorized to access the electronic data.

In general, the licensing medium 120 may be any type of portable electronic data storage medium that has a unique, unalterable serial number or other form of identification that can be transmitted electronically. Examples include smart cards, memory sticks, magnetic strip cards, floppy disks and other removable computer storage media. The licensing medium 120 and the electronic device that uses the licensed electronic data need not have a wired connection. A wireless connection, e.g., an infrared or radio frequency (RF) link, may be used._

DOES THIS PATENT APPLY?: In general, this seems to be a patent on a license system involving a separate, "portable" license module (like a dongle or smartcard) that provides license data and can be updated with new license data from the server. Putting aside the question of whether this deserves a patent in the first place, I wonder what about the guy's Android app involves a separate, removable license medium. What's their basis for suing?

Especially in the light of:

 _Speaking for Laminar Research, we used only the technology that was provided to us by Google for copy protection in our Android App 'X-Plane'… we used exactly the copy protection Google gave us! And, of course, this is what Google provides to EVERYONE ELSE THAT IS MAKING A GAME FOR ANDROID!_

KEY CLAIM: And here's the claim at the heart of the dispute, which I should've gone to at the start:

 _107\. Computer code executable on an electronic device to prevent unauthorized access to electronic data stored on the electronic device, the computer code comprising: code for storing license data on a portable licensing medium configured to communicate with the electronic device; code for determining whether to allow access to the electronic data based on the license data; code for verifying the license data stored on the licensing medium by communicating with a registration authority having verification data; and code for providing updated license data received from the registration authority to the licensing medium._

This very clearly says that the license data is stored on a "portable licensing medium". If they're referring to license data stored in the internal RAM or SD card of a smartphone, then it collapses to the traditional license- data-and-server model and it doesn't make sense to talk about a portable licensing medium any more.

It's patent nonsense, literally.

<comment><USER6> The SIM card is the removable medium. I think. I'm not sure.

Let's not forget that while this patent is a joke MS fought them for eight years and eventually settled.

([http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft- settles-f...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft-settles- fight-over-uniloc-anti-piracy-patent-1-.html))

<comment><USER17> Oh, wow, it's the same company that sued Mojang over "Mindcraft" not long ago. And over the same claim 107 too. (Good info man. But the Microsoft patent is '216, not the '067 that the X-Plane developer is being sued over.)

[http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/21/uniloc-sues-mojang-over- al...](http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/21/uniloc-sues-mojang-over-alleged- patent-infringement-in-android-v/)

If the SIM card is the source of the license data, surely the data must have been put there together with the app, and be directly relevant to it. If simply checking an account identifier on the SIM card before providing access is a violation (since it might be considered "license data"), then probably every smartphone in the world is in violation.

 _Uniloc has filed suit over the same patent against software companies in federal court in Tyler, Texas, including Symantec Corp. (SYMC) and Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) Some of those, including Adobe, have reached settlement agreements._

If even giants like Adobe...I don't know how much hope an independent developer has. Either Google does something, or the defendants will have to band together to gather the resources. What a terrible mess, that they actually managed to get money through their ridiculous claim 107.

edit: It turns out Laminar Research (the guy in this story) was already mentioned in the Reddit thread on Uniloc suing Minecraft. Along with Square Enix, EA, and other games companies.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/wx2pg/notch_being_sue...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/wx2pg/notch_being_sued_over_server_authentication_patent/)

OF PARTICULAR INTEREST:

edit2: It turns out that the case against Microsoft was overturned in 2009 by the District Court of Rhode Island:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4524170>

and very interestingly, "the Court found that _jury members were not able to sufficiently understand the technical details and legal issues to reach a reliable verdict_. There is also concern over the obstacles presented by increasing patent litigation to high-technology entrepreneurs and companies, which may inhibit innovation."

!!! A judge who actually said a jury wasn't sufficiently capable of understanding the details in a patent case! !!!

<comment><USER17> To add to this, Drew Curtis (founder of Fark.com) gave a talk on how he defeated a patent troll: [http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_curtis_how_i_beat_a_patent_tro...](http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_curtis_how_i_beat_a_patent_troll.html)

There are some good insights in this short talk, but there was also this comment by a user called Troll Busters:

 _This is unfortunate because Mr. Curtis was scammed. No, not by the patent troll, but by his lawyers who was more concerned about charging excessive fees when there was a much more cost-effective solution to his problem. The problem is not patent law but legal economics. This patent was easily invalidated by a simple and cost-efftive post-grant proceeding called a reexamination. However, law firms have been steering clients away from cost-effective proceedings in favor of much riskier and higher cost litigation to resolve disputes. Why? Because law firms need the high fees associated with patent litigation and discourage use of cost-effective post-grant proceedings to determine patent invalidity at the Patent Office.

I was familiar with the patent mentioned and proposed to wipe it out for $50K. We had the prior art needed to invalidate the patent. But each defendant's lawyer wanted to charge their clients fees and not give up the high-billing litigation legal work for such a simple solution that could have been shared collectively among the defendants. Instead, it allowed the troll to divide and conquer and force lucrative settlements for "nuisance fees" or the amount that would have to be paid to lawyers._

I don't know if the threat of a reexamination would have been enough to scare the patent troll away, but it would be very interesting if this were a viable method of nullifying the patent. I'm guessing it's not as easy as $50K-and- we're-done, else one of the victims in these cases would have attempted it already. But it seems like a successful invalidation would certainly kill the troll and save everyone the trouble and legal costs.

<comment><USER10> A former colleague of mine had information in his thesis which could invalidate a certain patent. For various unplanned reasons his thesis was not available online nor through his alma mater.

For a while, every year or two he would get a call from a lawyer who was willing to pay him a hefty fee for a copy of his thesis. For the lulz he always asked "do you want me to publish this somewhere?" and the lawyer always said "NO!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone know of a "Big List Of Things You Should Not Implement" that would help developers avoid stumbling into patent traps?

<comment><USER19> Any possible mechanism, algorithm, or feature with an explanation that can be reasonably expressed using the English language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why are judges not throwing out these lawsuits more?

What can we do to stop these and fix the system? Clearly, there are _real_ patent violations that occur and need stopped, but there are so many ones that benefit only trolls and attorneys.

<comment><USER21> Presumably, judges need to assume that granted patents are valid and defensible. On the other hand, Eastern Texas probably gets a good amount of revenue from allowing this sort of nonsense to be litigated.

<comment><USER22> Is the court system really a profit centre for the state?

<comment><USER23> That's about the only reason I can think of for why they handle such a striking amount of patent lawsuits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What are the full names, home addresses, business/home/cell phone number, e-mail address (etc.) of every principal and/or shareholder of Uniloc USA, Inc.?

I found the following, but I'm sure there is much more:

Mr. Bradley C. Davis, CEO

Mr. Craig S. Etchegoyen, Co-Founder

Mr. Michael Lin, CFO

Mr. J. A. White, VP Sales & Business Development

Mr. Joe Mordetsky, VP Engineering

For many states where companies are incorporated, much of this is often required to be released as public information for articles of incorporation and annual report filings--even for privately-owned corporations.

<comment><USER15> You can share your opinion of the merits of this case c/o Uniloc's corporate office or through the attorney in this case. Or feel free to file an amicus curiae brief with the court having jurisdiction over this case. The latter approach will at least have a chance of helping if you are an expert who is well versed in the subject matter.

Or is your motivation is to mount a campaign of distributed harassment of these individuals?

<comment><USER25> "You can share your opinion of the merits of this case c/o Uniloc's corporate office or through the attorney in this case."

You and I both know that this is a worthless avenue to take. Any organization of sufficient size generating externalities and ill will certainly has a "catchall" mechanism for making sure that such opinions regarding merit will probably never be read and considered.

Publicly publishing their contact info ensures that they receive all feedback unfiltered (assuming they would have received such feedback at all). Yes, it is likely that these people will be exposed to distributed harassment by _some_ members of the public that are unhappy with what they are doing, but it will also give other members of the public the opportunity to write something thoughtful that gets to the intended recipient.

It's an unfortunate dichotomy, but between approach A that will more than likely filter out all dissenting opinion before arriving at the desk of the recipients and approach B that will result in the delivery of thoughtful comments and harassment, the latter is far more desirable because at least it has the opportunity to have an impact.

<comment><USER24> I wasn't thinking about directly sending Uniloc, its officers or its investors feedback.

After reading the article, I immediately thought of how I would feel and what I would do. I have had some experience with having a "diamond" that I had spent years figuratively cutting and polishing suddenly smashed to bits. But, my metaphorical diamond is not of the same scale as the original author's corporation. I didn't see it coming and it only amounted to a loss of a few thousand dollars. If I knew months or years beforehand that someone was building a case for some wild claims about my supposed mega-diamond that were false (e.g., the original diamond was theirs and was stolen even though I personally mined the rough diamond with valid mineral rights), but that those claims were going to be presented in a courtroom where I was at a significant disadvantage, I would want to explore plans of defense that were reasonably complete.

Given my inexperience in these matters, I also would really appreciate and perhaps greatly benefit from help. It could even be help in a form that might first appear meaningless without perspective that was later provided by future developments or other information.

Would I fantasize that some heavy hitters in the media would investigate and perhaps assist with informing the public of my plight and the plight of others who are increasingly victimized by these tricky diamond thieves or patent trolls? Sure. Should someone from the media want to start investigating exactly what is happening in this case, it would be nice if one of the first hits they see is this Hacker News thread. The opinions and details contained herein--the who, what, how, why, where, etc--might be quite helpful if someone digs up a small nugget that leads to something bigger. There may be (or there may not be) several obvious items that are just under the surface of this matter that just need some bits to come to light before the dots can be connected.

It's possible that we are unaware of some real eye-opening items relating to this matter that someone just needs to dig a bit to find within the mountain of publically available information. Has Uniloc intentionally targetted a very specific corporate demographic? Has Uniloc already successfully settled with thousands or tens of thousands of small companies already with just some persistent and carefully-worded threats?

Then, there's the matter I originally bought up. Should the individuals behind this be subject to public scrutiny that would normally only be expected for people like senatorial, mayoral or presidential political candidates? If this were my diamond that was going to be taken from me and I had time to do something, I think I would agree with this level of scrutiny. Would I want to let the perpetrators of these legal maneuvers grow in their direct and indirect dealings that appeared to be directly harming me? No. I don't think it's wrong to look at publically available information if there may be some aspect of that public information that might be helpful. Why not know every single thing that is possible to know? If this were happening to me, I would feel remiss if I did not pursue perfectly legal and reasonable avenues of investigation.

In addition, the information gathered and communicated during investigation can be used by others. There are so many obvious ways in which those involved can be discouraged from doing these things. I'm talking about using gathered information in the most obvious ways such as:

* Abstaining from the purchase of products or services from:

\- those bringing lawsuits

\- other organizations which are owned by the principals and/or investors (e.g., a restaurant owned jointly officer X and spouse)

\- other organizations which funded/are funding and/or assisting them

Before any of this can be done, some basic investigation has to be done... search, identify and communicate any and all public information which might be of use to reporters, the writer of the original article or other HN users which are trying to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What is needed, is a fast track evaluation of technology claims. The speed can be achieved by streamlining the process of finding the field expert, providing archives and secretarial services during the evaluation, and coaching the expert about the process. The task can be taken up by an industry foundation, which can also drive down the cost.

Any expert with some experience in dealing with patents can figure out if a patent in his/her area has any merit. But doing it in court is a different matter, and takes time.

The problem is, the court has to do this evaluation by appointing established experts, who don't have much time anyway, so even the search for experts take time. And the experts have to evaluate the claims with respect to historical state of the art at the time of patent application.

We are lucky that the internet now remembers most of the past, so we can go back to comments in HN, and say, "see, people were already talking about that in public at the time of this patent". But, for older patents, the experts have to dig through conferences, magazines, emails, journals, etc. as reference, and evidence that something was known. Without such diligent work, plainly declaring that an idea is trivial, will not be something an expert will be willing to do in court.

All this can be sped up and the costs can be reduced if an organization took the task. I) Hire a group of neutral distinguished academics in several key fields, who will find and appoint technology experts. II) Put together the tools and archives the experts will need in their evaluation. III) Coach the experts about the process, and provide secretarial services during the process.

<comment><USER26> This could be the Free Patent Foundation, similar to FSF, but for everybody.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This patent looks too broad. It's a joke, challenge the patent. Then sue Uniloc.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OReilly_v._Morse>

</comment><comment><USER28> This is scary.

</comment><comment><USER29> I was with him until the unborn child bit. Then it went off the deep end.

<comment><USER30> If a project I put a lot of sweat into and providing a revenue stream I depended on for my family was now threatened by a large entity, and the monetary cost was more than the combined value of my total app revenue and my personal savings, plus the time cost is more than I'm willing to bear... I'd be there with him.

Being sued is stressful.

Being sued and losing a revenue stream, when you want to bring this thing into the world that eats, breathes, and needs you and your time is doubly stressful.

Being sued, losing a revenue stream, wanting to have another child, and having your significant other tell you that while this cloud is hanging over your head, we won't take on the additional responsibility in the shrinking window of her fertility, is heart breaking.

Those daydreams you have of building a successful product, while your kids play in the backyard, now evaporate.

To call it the deep end, is very dismissive.</comment></comment>


Effectively using Discourse together with group chat (Slack) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.discourse.org/2018/04/effectively-using-discourse-together-with-group-chat/ <comment><AUTHOR> In light of some large open source communities like Ghost [1] and Ember [2] concluding that Slack was cannibalising their community activity, we decided to write up our take on best practices for harmonising ephemeral (chat) and permanent (forum) discussions.

[1]([https://twitter.com/JohnONolan/status/980872508395188224](https://twitter.com/JohnONolan/status/980872508395188224)) [2]([https://discuss.emberjs.com/t/should-ember-better-define- its...](https://discuss.emberjs.com/t/should-ember-better-define-its-use-of- slack/14474))</comment>


Show HN: Destination Reads – Find the best books set in cities around the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.destinationreads.com <comment><USER2> This is something I've been interested in for ages. I recently went to India and the first thing I Googled was "best books set in India" (answers: Shantaram, A Fine Balance, Midnight's Children, God of Small Things). So definitely something I would use.

Some comments from me:

1\. Needs to be much bigger. You currently have four books recommended for London, both fiction and non-fiction. But there are hundreds and hundreds of books set in London, which leads me on to ...

2\. Needs to be curated. When I was searching for the best books set in India, I was looking for the most popular, critically-acclaimed, 'important' books, not just any old book set in India. Some sense of priority would be useful.

3\. Needs to include more than just cities. Could you also include regions and countries, too? If you're travelling in the Deep South, for example, you'll want to be recommended things like Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc. even though these books aren't always set in specific cities. (I think Faulkner set lots of his books in a fictional county somewhere in the Deep South).

4\. UX. I don't need photos of cities on the buttons. If this is a site that _might_ be used by people on holiday = people with really slow internet, you might want to think about getting rid of needless graphics, or offering a low- bandwidth version. Again, to return to the India example, the Internet here (and lots of other places I've been) is woeful. Some services (e.g. Reddit, WhatsApp) do really well in those circumstances, others (e.g. Twitter) not so much.

Great idea, however. Looking forward to see how it grows!

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the belated response - this is incredibly helpful! Thanks a ton for taking a look - prioritization in particular, figuring out how to highlight the "best of the best" as the amount of content on the site grows, feels key to me as well.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! Whenever I travel to a new city for work or fun, I like to read a book set in that place, or about that place, to set the mood and build a rapport with my new environment before I arrive. After a conversation with one of my friends, I realized that many frequent travelers do this, and thought I'd make a website to curate and collect "destination reads" \-- novels, memoirs and other long-form works of fiction and creative non-fiction that capture the character and essence of a city.

I plan to add more cities over the next few weeks, and hope for nominations and contributions from the community. This is the first webapp I've ever built (I used Webflow) -- would love feedback on design, content, and anything else that I can improve!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks really cool! Congratulations on shipping. Looking forward to reading some of the NYC books =)</comment>


Sovereign Keys, EFF's proposal to replace the certificate authority model - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/sovereign-keys-proposal-make-https-and-email-more-secure

<comment><USER2> This is clever, and I think it relates in a neat way to the current TLS trust imbalance between browsers and native clients.

When I write a native client app against my own server, I don't need to rely on traditional appeals to CA trust because I know exactly what certificate the server should be presenting to me.

TLS is weaker in browsers because arbitrary web clients don't know my server ahead of time, so they trust me if one of the Super Trustworthy Oracles trusts me. But the list of those CAs is large enough, and updated slow enough, that the list is not particularly trustworthy in aggregate even when any individual CA may be considered trustworthy at a particular point in time. So there's an issue there, even with a savvy user class who would reject access in response to a certificate warning.

The Sovereign Keys proposal strikes me as a way to let browsers 'phone a friend' who, in essence, knows exactly what certificate the server should be presenting. It makes an arbitrary client more like my native client.

But I think there's a scalability concern about Sovereign Keys that's related to the problems we see with CAs today: When they become a popular commodity, how will the system deal with millions of websites asking for Sovereign Keys? Will it really take the time to verify that the requestors are valid, or will it try to 'meet the demand' and sacrifice security in the process? And when the system is fooled, as it occasionally will be, how quickly will revocations or replacements be operational?

<comment><USER3> I don't think the scalability is as much of an issue as you think. The current system allows a trusted CA (or untrusted if you are OK with warnings) to issue a cert to a malicious party for, say, facebook.com. This means that in aggregate it is difficult to trust the reliability of a cert that a browser receives.

The strength of the Sovereign Key is that once facebook.com issues a Sovereign Key, no one can possibly produce a key that is valid for facebook.com unless facebook.com revokes its key, which is a cryptographically secure process that only facebook.com can perform using its private key.

This largely alleviates the problem you describe. One can be relatively lax in distributing new sovereign keys, because there is no way to attack an existing one by granting another. One still has to be a little careful in granting them because a site without a sovereign key might be attacked by creating one in its name controlled by a malicious third party, but it's not as dangerous as the current system where granting an overly broad certificate to Joe Schmo can compromise google.com's SSL.

<comment><USER4> What would happen if a sovereign key for facebook.com was granted to a malicious party before Facebook gets the chance to request one? Can such an error ever be corrected?

<comment><USER2> This is exactly my concern, only less for facebook and more for the multitudes of less-famous sites that nevertheless transact a lot of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is already quite a bit of work done regarding using DNSSEC as a PKI for distributing keys(any kind). One relevant paper is <http://www.acsac.org/2005/papers/49.pdf>.

The nice part about storing public keys in DNS and authenticate them using the trust chain starting from the DNS root servers, is that you have a solid foundation that can be used for all kinds of interesting applications, much more than just encrypting traffic between the webserver and the client. As an example, we had a project where we stored a public key in the txt field of a domain name(signed), and we would sign all HTTP responses with that key. The client could then get the public key via DNSSEC and verify the signature of the HTTP response. The advantage over SSL is that you get authenticity and integrity for each HTTP response. [http://tnc2010.terena.org/schedule/posters/pdf/100511170332n...](http://tnc2010.terena.org/schedule/posters/pdf/100511170332niek_tnc2010_poster.pdf)

The proposal from EFF also leverages DNSSEC as a trust source, which I think is better than the current PKI that we are using, but its not without its flaws. The biggest problem is that you are still dependent of a 3rd party(registrar) to give you that trust, and usually these kind of entities are very prone to being influenced by governments. We can see what kind of legislation some governments are trying to promote, so I'm not sure if a centralized solution is the best way we can go :)

<comment><USER6>
      > usually these kind of entities are very prone to
      > being influenced by governments

A lot of registrars are down-right shady _without_ getting governments involved...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In related news, Google has said they do not plan to implement Convergence, a similar SSL alternative:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/08/google_chrome_reject...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/08/google_chrome_rejects_convergence/)

</comment><comment><USER8> "The main requirement for being able to [create a Sovereign Key] is that the requesting party controls a CA-signed certificate for the relevant domain, or uses a DNSSEC-signed key to show that they control that domain".

I don't quite understand this. If our problem is that CA-signed certificates are not very trustworthy, why use them as the basis for the new system?

Can someone explain the DNSSEC alternative?

</comment><comment><USER9> My first thought when I saw the word "sovereign" was that this was a plan advocating making nation-states the ultimate certificate authority or something.

Now that I see this is just the opposite, the terror of that moment has passed.

</comment><comment><USER4> How does that compare to bitcoin? The distributed append-only data structure sounds like it is similar to the bitcoin block chain.

But the article says this structure is "semi-centralized". Is there a good reason why the sovereign key system isn't fully distributed like bitcon is?</comment>


American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER3> People who were legally in the US, were literally picked up off of American streets, blindfolded, put into secret CIA aircraft, flown to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Uzbekistan, and then tortured [0].

Yet not a single person has gone to jail over this. The CIA hasn't been reformed structurally, and no additional oversights have been added. In fact the only difference between then and now is we have a different administration in the White House who are just choosing not to continue it...

Does this not disturb anyone? Isn't this exactly the type of stuff people used to joke about the USSR/KGB doing? Since when did the US constitution only apply to citizens and not residence?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#21st_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#21st_century)

<comment><USER4> That Wikipedia article lists 1 person who was deported from US territory (prior to their clearing border control, so they were not legally in the country).

Are you getting the "Hundreds of people who were legally in the US" from some other resource?

I guess people won't really change their views on the practice just depending on whether it occurs in the US or not, but I also don't see any reason to add noise to the discussion.

<comment><USER5> Do we have a proper source? We really shouldn't go on any number mentioned in Wikipedia unless it is comprehensive and well sourced.

Following news over the past few years, just by the number of mentions in the media over that time, the distinct impression I have it that it is more than one.

This article, from 2005 says that hundreds of people have been taken (from the streets) since a couple years prior. ([http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-27-ci...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-27-cia- renditions_x.htm))

<comment><USER4> The parent comment was very specific about saying "legally in the US" and "American streets".

This is simply not the case, there are not hundreds of extraordinary renditions that started with a kidnapping on US soil.

But sure, let's all get outraged about a blatant misunderstanding of reality, instead of discussing the still outrageous reality.

<comment><USER6> I agree we shouldn't get into a huff about what isn't reality - in fact I called for real data.

I don't personally see much of a non-legal distinction between geolocations.

We probably should have a little outrage at torture and rendition programs, though we should probably have some realism too.

<comment><USER4> Just some realism? What harm is done by asking people to accurately describe the program?

If OP had bothered to understand the actual nature of the rendition programs and understand why the legal distinction matters, they would have an answer to their question about no one being in jail. That is, under current US law, it is not illegal for the CIA to kidnap people in other countries.

So the interesting discussion, the one about whether the US should be engaging in these activities (it should not), ends up getting overshadowed by the stupid sideshow about accuracy. But pushing back on the inaccuracy is necessary, imagine if we had to respectfully discuss the coming Martian invasion every time someone managed to stick that into the top comment in a thread.

<comment><USER6> This appeals to me, but I think at this point we are preaching to ourselves.

Re: realism. Some outrage is a nice way to temper realism with civility. If we temper it instead with only a pragmatic calculus or some Randian or Social Darwinism there's a chance we can delude ourselves into a fascism, jingoism or militarism. I prefer to play tit-for-tat - lead with the pillow, reply to sticks with hammers. But if in pursuit of the pragmatic we abandon the ideals, we're going to optimize the 'wrong' objective. In other words - the outrage is a way to call for the US to recognize inalienable rights (which mean that no nationality, nor any government, gives them to you), to pursue fair trails, and to be accountable for mistakes, and to perform justice through a court system where it can be seen for the good thing it is. It is not outrage for outrage's sake.

<comment><USER4> I think it is a fine thing to be outraged about the US kidnapping people, it is pretty outrageous. I've used "kidnap" repeatedly to hint at that, rather than sticking to "extraordinary rendition".

I think it is really stupid to be outraged that the CIA is kidnapping people off of the street _in the US_ , because they are not doing that.

I feel like I am repeating myself, but from what I can tell from your reply here, you don't seem to see what I am getting at.

<comment><USER6> No, I don't think I am.

The CIA definitely has taken people from the US - even innocent ones - <USER2> necessarily 'from the streets'. It has also targeted and killed US citizens without trials.

I think it is being informed by these facts along with similar feelings towards the CIA's 'kidnapping' and 'manslaughtering' of innocent non-citizens, that is repugnant to those with the palate for more civil tone and direction of real defense and intelligence objectives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are so many of us that are sick and tired of reading this kind of stuff and knowing that no one will be held accountable. The general population is so apathetic, it's hard to gain any traction.

What can we do? Seriously? Can we start a kickstarter to raise funds, to hire lawyers or whatever is needed to make sure people are sent to jail over this? What can we do that will make an impact, without relying on the ignorant mainstream public? There's got to be something

<comment><USER8> You vote. If you don't like the way other people are voting, change their minds. If you can't change their minds then you lost fairly.

Throwing people in jail over things that were repeatedly ruled legal and done in good faith is not something that we do in the United States, and is not a can of worms you want to open.

The unfortunate truth is that the great majority of Americans are NOT ignorant. They are aware that we were torturing people. Most of them either support what happened or just don't really care that much about it. If that bothers you, try to change it.

<comment><USER9> but what do you do if you disagree with the US as a foreigner in a moderate country?

unfortunately the only option you have left is to decide not to visit the US ever (regardless if you have friends living there). because the risk you face by traveling to the US and getting questioned for why you posted which tweets is simply not worth it. anyone who disagrees as a foreigner with US policy has been made automatically a suspect by US legislation. Your mentality is black and white and your system is Orwellian. Sorry.

<comment><USER8> You and I face that risk whenever we travel abroad no matter what country we are from or travelling to. I have never imagined that I have the same protection as citizens whenever I have traveled abroad. We are in large part protected by diplomatic relationships between our home country and the country we are travelling to, as well as our host country's desire to maintain a positive reputation for tourism and business.

If you're really afraid, don't come here. But your absence won't even be noticed because your fears are not truly shared by many, or they would have stopped coming a decade ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Bush years made me so ill, I had to stop following the news in order to maintain my health. A generational low point for western society.

<comment> atom-morgan What makes me ill is people who think it was exclusive to Bush's term.

<comment><USER11> I think Bush had the audacity to push through extraordinary measures initially. He was responsible for a number of Bill of Rights attacks: Habeas Corpus, search and seizure, 1A, Gitmo, and this whole rendition thing. The author of the Patriot act has since come forward and indicated he had no intention of having it abused in scope as we're seeing. PA was not intended to quash dissent nor pursue common criminals.

Obama ran on a platform of repealing PA and restoring the Bill of Rights. Of course, he did a quiet 180 on the issue shortly after entering office and has since issued more secret executive orders than any other president. It makes one wonder what happens to Presidents after they're sworn in. Does someone read them in on the facts of life? Or are they simply always dirtbags whose principles are for sale?

<comment> atom-morgan > It makes one wonder what happens to Presidents after they're sworn in. Does > someone read them in on the facts of life? Or are they simply always > dirtbags whose principles are for sale?

This is precisely why I had someone recently tell me they'd like to see Ron Paul get elected. He's someone who has been relatively consistent on his views throughout his career as a politician - often to his detriment. They said if he got elected and also did the 180, it'd surely be the nail in the coffin on the "facts of life" reading you mentioned being a reality.

<comment><USER12> _They said if he got elected and also did the 180, it 'd surely be the nail in the coffin on the "facts of life" reading you mentioned being a reality._

You mean that he would have been corrupted? Or that there were secret truths that Presidents have access to that change their actions from what they claim in advance that they would do 'as President'.

<comment> atom-morgan Neither. They were implying that in the case of a 180 the President is a puppet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a pretty sick example of institutions being corrupted by the power of the government.

Where are the prosecutions of the APA? Where are the disbarments? Where are the war crimes trials for the Bush regime?

This stuff is done in our names without our consent, and we have an ethical obligation to act out and speak out.

<comment><USER14> We may not be able to move the DOJ on prosecuting Addington, Wu and the other architects of the torture program.

But the APA has an ethics committee

[http://www.apa.org/about/governance/bdcmte/ethics- committee....](http://www.apa.org/about/governance/bdcmte/ethics- committee.aspx)

If the notion of American doctors aiding and abetting torture strikes you as a matter that that the APA should discipline it's members over. Contact the ethics committee.

The staff liaison's email is email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Related:

 _The head of a body that advises U.S. terrorism interrogators on ethics on Thursday called for a special prosecutor to probe how the abuse of captured militants during the Bush administration 's "war on terror" was allowed to happen._

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/30/us-usa-torture- idU...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/30/us-usa-torture- idUSKBN0NL2T720150430)

</comment><comment><USER16> I guess this shows how deeply corrupt the leadership of the APA is? Realistically how would they say no to this?

<comment><USER13> Easy: document saying no, then go public with the fact that the government tried to pervert its medical apparatus into supporting the torture programs.

Boom, credibility of the USG's medical agencies goes to shit overnight, and you're inoculated from further manipulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This headline should not have been edited to remove the words "Report Says", which make it clear that this story is not the contention of the NY Times itself and not based on their own investigating reporting, but is rather a contention from someone else's report.

</comment><comment><USER18> There are statements about legality, about outrage, about who should be punished, about the corruption of organizations.

That's not interesting to me. I'm not happy about it, but I'm actually more disappointed.

The thing is, something like the APA should, more than anyone, know how ineffective torture would be for getting the kind of information that they were looking to find.

The problem with torture, aside from the fact that it's hurtful, is that it is ineffective. We know this. We've studied it, we've already got a lot of data. The APA is supposed to be the professionals in this field that should be able to say that we shouldn't be torturing people.

It's like you find out there was a group of doctors that are contracted to create a virus to wipe out a segment of the population, and the doctors deliver something that causes extreme itchiness and the inability to control your bowels. It doesn't kill anyone, it just makes your city smell like shit and causes these people targeted to be angry and uncomfortable.

It's still heinous, and immoral. But not only that, it's ineffective and worthless. I mean, the torture argument comes up and there's always defenders that say "desperate times call for desperate measures". But the thing is, it doesn't matter how desperate you are, torture doesn't lead to good results, no matter how angry you are, no matter how bad you want it to.

The thing is, I can understand if people in the military might not know this, or believe it. But the thing is, the APA is supposed to represent an organization that understands our minds. They SHOULD know this. So more than just "Oh they did a heinous thing" I am thinking "Oh, they did an idiotic thing, AND it was heinous!"

I mean, if they were to do some horrific torturous mind control stuff, and because of that we got information that led to the safe return of troops abroad and a swift victory over the enemy, then I'd still be angry that they were willing to do horrible things to get that victory. But I'd respect their ability. In the same way that I think a nuclear bomb is a horrific weapon that should have never been used on a civilian population, but I think that the people who built it were really good at what they do.

But it's like asking for a nuclear weapon, and getting something that detonates and makes the city and surrounding countryside stink for years but doesn't harm anyone. I mean, it's detestable that they'd be working to try to murder massive numbers of civilians. But even more than that, it's awful that they failed so badly at it, and obviously never really knew what they were doing to start with. They didn't accomplish their goals, and just made people angry.

</comment><comment><USER19> delete

<comment><USER20> Pearl Harbor was an attack by the Japanese military on orders from the Japanese government. The 9/11 attacks were not perpetrated by a government or nation. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian nationals. By your logic, why was there no military action against Saudi Arabia?

<comment><USER21> The grandparent shouldn't have deleted the comment. It highlights a nuance that isn't often explored while ruffling some feathers.

So, why didn't we go nuke Saudi Arabia? A: It would not have accomplished anything. Morality is absent from the decision making process when it comes to warfare. If killing a million Saudis were the answer, they'd be dead.

Technology has made it possible (or necessary) for non nation-state actors to levy something very similar to war against nation-states.

In the case of a nation-state in the industrial and post-industrial age, the approach is straightforward -- you engage the enemy in the field AND destroy his ability to make war. The US Civil War was the dress-rehearsal for this, and WW1 explored the limits of what could be done before the innovations of the 20th century were fully baked.

Today, you can't have total war, because tools exist to permanently execute a total war -- nuclear weapons. So we fight in the fringes by arming various individuals and engaging in an evolved form of guerrilla warfare.

I think that history will conclude that the last decade and a half has been a process of the ultimate, seemingly omni-potent superpower figuring out how to scale down its war machine down as low as the individual actor.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How should I advertise my open source project? - <AUTHOR>

I released my first project recently on GitHub and I was hoping for some tips on how I could get more people interested in using it. <comment><USER2> Have you checked out <http://opencode.us/>?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm already over 25 watchers. Thanks though! I'll keep it in mind for future projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> First you should probably say what the project is.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a minimalist blog written in Python called Logr. I posted it on HN, but there was almost no response. The code is hosted on GitHub at <http://github.com/brewerhimself/Logr>.</comment></comment>


A Tutorial Introduction To The Language B - <AUTHOR> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/btut.html <comment><USER2> There is an obvious question here: why would someone learn B?

The entire reason for C being conceived was the lack of creating abstractions in B. No project should be carried out using B, so I suppose its published for sheer historical reasons..?</comment>


Ask HN: Review My App: www.shoutreel.com - <AUTHOR> www.shoutreel.com This is a microforum application that makes it super simple and easy to start a forum about any topic.  No users accounts are required to do free shouting, just a one-time captcha. Forums are called Reels and you have to login to create one.<p>We are still working on it so please be patient with the UI and some of the organization of the content.  We have many more features and UI improvements coming out in the next month. <comment><AUTHOR> We tried to make this app very flexible so that users could use it for many different things. For example: \- Students working on a project together \- Families sharing messages \- Companies getting feedback from users \- Single users using it to store thoughts and to-dos \- etc etc

*Next week we are rolling out the ability to make reel private.

</comment><comment><USER2> Clickable link: <http://shoutreel.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks tony, i thought the form would automatically create the link for me.

ShoutReel creates the link automatically! :)</comment></comment>


AWS Resource Access Manager – Cross-Account Resource Sharing - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-resource-access-manager-cross-account-resource-sharing/ <comment><USER2> "Route 53 Resolver Rules" seems like a strange resource to launch this service with...</comment>


Titan Security Keys: Now Available on the Google Store - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/titan-security-keys-now-available-on-the-google-store <comment><USER2> Related article by Krebs on Gooogle's security key deployment. [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/google-security-keys- neu...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/google-security-keys-neutralized- employee-phishing)

Related video by me and another googler about anti-phishing work by Google. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu6VkVmRMow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu6VkVmRMow)</comment>


SNAPALICIOUS is a free app that offers a new way to learn how to cook - <AUTHOR> http://snapaliciousapp.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Foodies, a few months ago I started developing an app for iPhone called SNAPALICIOUS. My plan for this app was to create something that offers a new way for learning to cook. Yeah, a really ambitious target, you may say! What I mean for a "new way for learning to cook"? Here is an example: you discover a new dish, you try to cook it but still there is that sauce you can't replicate.

What would you do? 1 - Search a good recipe on the web Very difficult to distinguish good from bad before actually trying them.

2 - Ask a friend This might work if the friend knows how to cook.

3 - Try SNAPALICIOUS and ask home-chefs how to cook a particular dish. Using it is simple and straightforward: Step 1 - Shoot a photo of a dish Step 2 - Share It! Step 3 - Give advice or ask questions to other home-chefs.

I hope you like it and give it a look.</comment>


Hearing some sad news out of Mozilla today - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1217511417450024960 <comment><AUTHOR> Seems to have been layoffs at Mozilla today</comment>


Speed Glitch on Shared Electric Scooters - <AUTHOR> https://scootertalk.org/viewtopic.php?p=11301#p11301 <comment><AUTHOR> Consumer Reports recently wrote an article about a speed glitch based on the information they found on the ScooterTalk forum. The glitch impacts the Segway Ninebot e-scooter in the fleets on Bird, Lyft, VOI, and more.

By following a few simple steps the scooter will rocket past the governed speed implemented by the city to 20+ mph (30+ kph).

Here are the steps:

(1) Begin riding the scooter

(2) While holding the throttle down press hard with your foot on the rear fender break to bring the scooter to a brief stop

(3) While continuing to hold the throttle release your foot from the rear fender

(4) The scooter will rocket to 20+ mph (30+ kph)

Here is a link to the Consumer Reports article. [https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/safety- glitch...](https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/safety-glitch-lets- some-electric-scooters-exceed-local-speed-limits/)</comment>


Is Bellevue the Next Williamsburg? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestranger.com/features/2018/12/05/36712354/is-bellevue-the-next-williamsburg <comment><USER2> I grew up in Bellevue, went to school in Seattle for 5 years during that time. Plenty of people do the same, not just for education but for work and recreation. In the sense that the two cities' are closely integrated in Seattle's metro area, yes Bellevue is the next Williamsburg and already had been for a while.

I don't think the rail connection will make a profound impact, as commuting across Lake Washington (in both directions) is very common already. But hopefully it will make those commutes more resilient to traffic, and make living on the Eastside without a car more feasible.

I'm more interested in what will happen to the Spring District. I moved away back when it was mostly an industrial area, dominated by the Pepsi plant. Central Bellevue is getting very expensive already, hopefully the development of the Spring District can take some of that pressure off.

</comment><comment><USER3> It'll have to do a ton of work to be as walkable as Williamsburg. Bellevue's streets are mostly car sewers.</comment>


When is the next batch of YC? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> September I think?</comment>


Six Degrees of Alan Turing - <AUTHOR> http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/10/19/six-degrees-of-alan-turing/ <comment><USER2> _" Specifically, it shows a dynamic graph in which each vertex is an author of a computer science research paper, where there is an edge between two authors if they have co-authored a paper..."_

This is an exact copy of the "Erdős number" concept (just replaces "math" with "computer science" and "Erdős" with "Turing"):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number)</comment>


Compiling Julia for NVIDIA GPUs - <AUTHOR> http://blog.maleadt.net/2015/01/15/julia-cuda/

<comment><USER2> Since I only have one GPU usually, I'm still waiting for the day I can do this:

        using CUDA

        # define a kernel
        @kernel function kernel_vadd(a, b, c)
            i = blockId_x() + (threadId_x()-1) * numBlocks_x()
            c[i] = a[i] + b[i]
        end

        # create some data
        dims = (3, 4)
        a = round(rand(Float32, dims) * 100)
        b = round(rand(Float32, dims) * 100)
        c = Array(Float32, dims)

        # execute!
        @cuda kernel_vadd(CuIn(a), CuIn(b), CuOut(c))

        # verify
        @show a+b == c

i.e. no set up, no "cuda context" (whatever that is), and no tear down afterwards. I understand that manual memory management is almost necessary with this application, but it seems that most of it could be automated in the most common case of "I have a couple of large arrays and a few operations I want to perform."

<comment><USER3> Instead of @kernel and @cuda, you might want to use defkernel and with-cuda... See the example files for cl-cuda:

[https://github.com/takagi/cl- cuda/blob/master/examples/vecto...](https://github.com/takagi/cl- cuda/blob/master/examples/vector-add.lisp)

I though that Julia had macros, so I don't understand why what you propose is not possible (note to self: find time to learn Julia).

<comment><USER4> It is definitely possible to do that in Julia. The reason a didn't yet is purely a manner of priorities, I first focused on wrapping the basic primitives (calling a kernel, marshalling arguments, etc) in a user-friendly way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The content of the project aside (which is very exciting but early stage), I'm really impressed with the author's overview for how others can take up the project and move it forward. I've seen too many projects die because when the authors move onto other things they just leave an incomplete git repo and no clear plan for what happens next. It'd be great of course if there were someone lined up to take the reins, but the crucial thing is that in this case someone could ascertain the project's state and possible next steps even months after maleadt is out of the picture.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the kind words! This was exactly what I was aiming for: the code (or insights) to be reusable without too much hassle. More so because part of it was developed in the scope of my PhD; I wouldn't want to know how many failed or unpublishable research results are stowed away on some grad student's computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does this compare/contrast vs opencl.jl[1]?

When working in julia, what are the benefits of tying oneself to CUDA (and not running accelerated on on-die graphics or on amd gpus) -- or doesn't nvidia work reliably/well with opencl?

[1] [https://github.com/JuliaGPU/OpenCL.jl](https://github.com/JuliaGPU/OpenCL.jl)

<comment><USER4> OpenCL.jl is purely the runtime part, ie. it still requires you to write manual OpenCL code, after which you can use the julia wrapper to manage that code.

My project also provides compiler support for lowering Julia to CUDA assembly, so you don't need to write CUDA code yourself. Added to that, my runtime also contains (PoC) higher-level wrappers, making it easier to call CUDA kernels, upload data, etc.

Concerning tying yourself to the NVIDIA-stack: it's still the most mature and versatile toolchain, which is why I picked it in the first place. My long term plan was to switch over to SPIR (or some other cross-vendor stack) as soon as possible. At that point, switching user-code over to that new back-end would (theoretically) not require that much effort, since the kernels are written in julia-code instead of CUDA C (except for the runtime interactions, of course).

<comment><USER6> Thank you for emphasising the part about kernels being Julia code -- I missed that entirely!

As for Nvidia/CUDA being more mature -- that was what I feared -- it seems a common sentiment in the discussions I've seen on OpenCL/CUDA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't forget to use the /3.5GB compiler option if it's for a GTX 970!</comment>